


Quiet when I’m coming home, and I’m on my own

by Closeted_Bookworm



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, GhostInnit babyeeee, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, how bout those lore streams today, i am wounded so i must inflict angst on others
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29796420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Closeted_Bookworm/pseuds/Closeted_Bookworm
Summary: After one last look over the ruins of perhaps the last place he and his friend had loved together, he turned around to leave. And saw him.A glistening figure, sitting on top of the headstone with his hands folded in his lap and blank white eyes. It was Tommy.Mourning your best friend becomes a lot harder when they haven't fully left.
Relationships: Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 2
Kudos: 51





	Quiet when I’m coming home, and I’m on my own

**Author's Note:**

> soooooooooo... lore stream recovery anyone? you probably won't find anything particularly comforting in this fic, but it's good anyway :')

Tommy’s body was buried by the bench where they always shared music, overlooking the remains of his beloved country. Tubbo had taken to keeping a music disc playing there at all hours, as a memorial. He visited constantly, making sure it was still singing its pensive song into the quiet air. The music had changed in his mind, it was sadder. Dispirited. 

He was not ashamed to admit that he cried.

He’d taken to leaving flowers by the headstone. He didn’t know if Tommy would’ve liked the colorful blooms, but he didn’t give it too much thought. The task gave him something to care about. He was responsible for keeping them fresh.

The seventh flower he left was an oxeye daisy, the fragile ring of beautiful white petals slightly bruised from his pocket. He laid it in the dirt and scooped up the remains of a cornflower, pounded into the dirt by a rainstorm from the day before. He tucked it into his jacket. The burning was building behind his eyes again, and his throat prickled. 

He turned away from the headstone, sat down on the bench, buried his head in his hands, and let the tears come. He had always thought crying was supposed to feel good, but it was never cathartic when he broke down here. It just hurt more, because Tommy wasn’t there to awkwardly pat his shoulder and work him through it.

He couldn’t bring himself to look back at his friend’s final resting place. It was incredibly wrong, to know that he was beneath the ground in a wooden box, built by Sam and Puffy.

Phil had wanted to help. Tubbo wouldn’t let him.

He sobbed for a while, like he always did. He wasn’t sure what it accomplished, there was never any less sadness afterwards. But he never tried to stop the tears. 

The sun was going down. Golden light was cast across the crater in front of him, turning the ruins into a gilded bowl of bittersweet memories. Soon the glow would burnish to red and evoke different thoughts. He wanted to leave before that happened.

He dragged himself to his feet and rubbed his eyes with the ends of his sleeves, wiping the wetness off his cheeks the best he could. He wondered how puffy his eyes were. They were probably red and inflamed. He didn’t care if anyone saw him.

He plodded over to the jukebox and made sure the disc was secure inside. It would play all through the night.

After one last look over the ruins of perhaps the last place he and his friend had loved together, he turned around to leave. And saw him.

A glistening figure, sitting on top of the headstone with his hands folded in his lap and blank white eyes. It was Tommy.

A strangled cry left his throat and the strength rushed out of his legs. He dropped to his knees and started crying all over again, staring at the translucent outline of his friend bathed in evening radiance. 

“Tommy?” he choked out, pushing himself back to his feet and stumbling forward. He reached out with a trembling hand but pulled back before he touched him, suddenly afraid. If this was an illusion, he didn’t know if he’d be able to recover. It would be losing him all over again.

Tommy hadn’t moved. He was seated placidly atop the granite memorial with a glazed expression, looking through Tubbo instead of at him. His skin looked like glass, unblemished and smooth but thin enough to see the world through him like a frosted window.

Tubbo stepped back. “Tommy?” he tried a second time.

The ghost remained still. 

He moved closer again and stretched out a trembling finger. It went through the spirit like a breeze through a cloud, scattering the particles under his hand with a swirl of snowy smoke only for them to regroup once he drew back. He clutched his hand to his chest and sucked in a gulp of air, pain stabbing into his heart.

Ghostbur was tangible. He could give hugs and pet sheep and pick flowers.

Tommy’s ghost was not. 

He sagged back onto the bench, fresh tears running down his cheeks. This was worse than his ghost never appearing. If he never returned, then Tubbo knew Tommy was happy in the afterlife. With Wilbur. But instead his spirit was here, frozen in television static at his gravesite. And Tubbo couldn’t even touch him.

* * *

Eventually, Tommy’s spirit started to meander slowly around the server.

He was nothing like Ghostbur, who had all his trauma stripped away from him and his personality reset. GhostInnit was a lot emptier than that. He wandered aimlessly around the SMP with vacant white eyes and a melancholy air the real Tommy would never have produced, running his flickering hands over smooth wooden boards and paying no attention to anyone around him. 

His light guttered and faded at intervals, and he often vanished entirely for days at a time. Tubbo hated those periods. They kept getting longer.

He would often walk over empty air where L’manberg used to stand, following demolished roads and sitting down on chairs that no longer existed. Sometimes Tubbo would grab building materials and try to follow him, constructing shaky bridges out to the spirit just so he could sit down by the shell of his friend and try to see what he was seeing.

The ghost never saw him.

Tubbo didn’t tell anyone about Ghostinnit, but everyone knew. Techno found out the day the flickering figure appeared in his storeroom, pantomiming picking up and eating an apple. Quackity saw him roaming the halls of his hotel, and spent the rest of the day white as a sheet. Sam saw him at the entrance to the prison, staring up at the imposing walls with a passive acceptance. 

No one had entered the prison cell since Sam brought out Tommy’s body. Several had tried. Sam wouldn’t let them. Tubbo had never attempted to visit. He didn’t know what he’d do if he came face to face with Dream after what he did.

Tubbo accompanied him everywhere. He knew it probably wasn’t healthy, attaching himself to the spectre like this, but he missed Tommy so much that he would do anything to keep seeing him. He’d decided that he would guard his friend’s spirit, making sure he always wandered back home.

One day, Ghostinnit walked to Pogtopia. Tubbo followed him with dread sitting heavy like a rock in his chest as they climbed down the dilapidated spiral staircase, shuddering as they emerged into the button-covered chamber.

The spirit didn’t pay any attention to his surroundings, making a beeline for Techno’s abandoned potato farm. He passed through the door with a flurry of white crystals and Tubbo hurriedly tugged the door open and slipped in after him. 

The sprouts were long-since overgrown and many were shriveled up into husks, but Ghostinnit didn’t seem to notice, bending down and yanking at an invisible stem until he uprooted a potato. Tubbo couldn’t see the plant, but he knew it was there in his friend’s eyes. The ghost sat down with his legs splayed in front of him, cradling the nonexistent spud in his hands as he stared downward.

Tubbo sat beside him, as close as he could get without sending bits of his best friend flying in the wind. He talked to fill the silence.

“I can’t remember the last time I came back here, it’s really gone wild while we’ve been gone, hasn’t it? I can’t believe that these were the better days. You hated it here, but it was safe. Maybe we would’ve been better off staying away from L’Manberg. Let Dream have it. Then maybe he wouldn’tve…” he trailed off, the end of the sentence hanging in the air. He stared down at the ground.

“I miss you,” he said softly. He could feel himself starting to cry. “So much.”

He looked to the side, and his breath hitched. Tommy was looking at him. Not past him. At him. 

A smile broke out across his cheeks and he almost leaped forward for a hug, stopping himself just in time.

“Tommy!” he cried happily. His friend could see him. At last. “Tommy,” he repeated.

The ghost let a small grin spread across his cheeks, the first expression he’d made since his appearance, and Tubbo felt like he was going to burst from joy. 

Tommy’s smile grew even larger and he got to his feet, Tubbo jumping up to match him as Tommy opened his arms and leaned forward.

Tubbo tried to fall into the embrace. But the ghost went right through him and he gasped as the apparition swirled around him in disorder before reforming just behind him, tightly hugging someone who wasn’t there. Tubbo’s face dropped as he realized the affection wasn’t for him. Tommy hadn’t actually seen him.

He stared despondently at the spirit and tried not to cry as someone invisible ruffled the ghost’s hair and let him out of the hug. Tubbo felt a feather-light touch on his shoulder and for a split second the afterimage of a tall man in a tattered trench coat flashed across his eyes, staring lovingly back at the shell of his friend. 

A moment later the image was gone and he was left to watch Ghostinnit’s eyes follow the presence out of the room before returning to his state of blank apathy. He jumped in front of the spirit and frantically waved a hand in front of his eyes, desperately trying to provoke a response. 

Nothing.

* * *

They slept in Pogtopia that night. Tommy laid motionless in the air where his bed used to be, and Tubbo curled up on the ground and drifted in and out of consciousness, fighting tears. 

He drifted into an uneasy slumber and was haunted by dreams of dark walls and screams. A figure chased him through the dark, calling in a familiar voice. One that he hoped he’d never hear again.

He ran as fast as he could through the maze of shadowy corridors, searching for an exit, but there were only more walls. The voice was growing nearer. He pushed himself faster and faster, frantically trying to keep one step ahead, but he rounded the next corner and found himself facing a dead end.

He spun around, eyes blown wide, as the owner of the voice came into view.

They were tall, towering over him with enormous emerald wings curving around the round white sphere they called a head, carved with the hideous face of the god of the server. They wore pitch black robes and carried a glowing spellbook covered with ancient runes, casting iridescent rainbows onto the walls.

“He is stuck,” they proclaimed. “You know how to fix him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he screamed.

“Go to he who follows me, and the lost will be brought back,” they boomed. They swooped towards him and grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him in close. _**“How far are you willing to go to bring him back?”**_

He awoke in a cold sweat, the words burning in his brain. He grabbed his head and shook it hard, trying to dislodge the thoughts from his head, but the answer to the riddle was staring him in the face. There was no doubt about who the being was referring to, but he hated the idea so much that it was awful to even think about. 

But the second question cut deep. He looked over to the glassy, still form of Tommy, and made his decision.

* * *

Dream looked up as the lava curtain parted, grinning at his grimly determined expression. 

“Are you looking to cut a deal?” he asked with a smirk.

**Author's Note:**

> No joke made myself cry twice writing this thing. This fandom is about to be flooded with SO MUCH ANGST I'M NOT READY
> 
> commints much appreciated thanks


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